Scuba Adventure

 Before we even set foot in the Bahamas, we scheduled a day of Scuba Diving.  We found Stuart Cove, the best Scuba Place I have ever encountered.  They came to the Hotel and picked us up.  It was on the other side of the island, so it was cool to drive through the non-tourist parts.

Our First Dive was a shipwreck dive.  There were three separate ship wrecks, all of varying sizes.  We went down almost 100 feet under the water.  We came around the bow of one ship and there was a nurse shark just hanging out.  It was slightly unnerving, but too cool to be bothersome.  We got to explore all around the boats, but stayed on the outside of them. Our second dive was the James Bond dive.  Two James bond movies used a sunken airplane and ship.  These ended up being really cool dives because we got to see a lot of beautiful coral and sea life.  We also got to spend about 30 minutes exploring the ocean all by ourselves.  After that we went back to the shop to eat lunch.  In the mean time we heard about the shark feed dive and decided we had to do that.

So, on the shark feed dive they take you down to what they call the Arena.  They have you all sit in a circle anchored down by a rock.  The dive master is wearing chain-male (sp) and feeds the sharks right in the middle of our circle.  These are Caribbean Reef Sharks.  The females are bigger and of the ones we saw they got up to about 8 feet long.  At first they would swim by us and occasionally brush up against our bodies.  It was thrilling!!

Then when the feed got near us they were full on bumping into us almost knocking us over.  You have to keep you hands tucked in close because right before they bite their food they "close there eyes" and eat by sensation.  They will bite where they feel the movement, so if your hand is moving...it might as well be counted as gone.  These sharks got up close and personal!

These are pictures Grant took with our camera as the sharks were swimming around us.  It kind of gives you an idea of how close they are.

 It was an absolutely incredible adventure.  After the feeding we were given a little time to look for a sharks tooth that had fallen out.  Grant was the only person in our group that found one.

 Scuba diving is a blast, but put sharks into the mix and it is virtually unmatched!!!